Shaifali Sandhya, PhD.
Coaching for Individuals, Children & Couples
PSYCHOLOGIST // COACH
Dr. Shaifali Sandhya, PhD is a US- and UK-trained clinical psychologist and writer specializing in mental health storytelling at the intersection of human behavior, environmental systems, and digital life. She holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and an MA from the University of Cambridge, and brings a psychological lens to narratives on trauma, child and couple's wellbeing, and how institutions and environments shape human resilience.
SHAIFALI SANDHYA, PH.D. | PSYCHOLOGIST
Clinical Psychologist | Author | Narrative Ethnographer
Dr. Shaifali Sandhya is a US- and UK-trained clinical psychologist and writer whose work explores mental health through the lens of human behavior, environmental systems, and technological change. Her writing focuses on how large-scale forces—climate stress, displacement, digital environments, and social inequality—shape psychological wellbeing across the lifespan, with particular attention to children, families, and communities living under chronic stress.
She holds a PhD in Human Development and Psychology from The University of Chicago, where she was a Mellon Fellow, and an MA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Cambridge Commonwealth and Rajiv Gandhi Fellow. She topped the University of Delhi and received the All-Round Excellence Trophy from the Prime Minister of India for academic excellence.
Dr. Sandhya is also an expert couple and family therapist and the author of internationally recognized scholarly and public-facing work. Her clinical and research expertise spans psychological trauma, intimate relationships, child and adolescent mental health, refugee and asylum-seeker wellbeing, and the mental health implications of digital and environmental change. Trained in a systems-based approach, she integrates attachment theory, cultural psychology, and evidence-based therapies to examine how social, ecological, and technological contexts influence human resilience and risk.
Her work has been featured in The New York Times, National Public Radio, CBS, Fox, and U.S. News & World Report, and she has advised policymakers and legal bodies on the mental health impacts of migration, public health crises, and environmental stress.